AMENDMENT I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

When I was a child I thought the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and
especially the First Amendment, were cool.

When I went to law school I learned what great works of genius they are.

To me, the First Amendment summarizes the central values of a pluralistic
democratic society, the values I used to think all Americans believed in
and even took for granted.

Further, it symbolizes America's claim to assert true moral leadership in
the world. Where nations are concerned a claim to true "moral leadership"
includes a population free to read, write, speak, think, and worship (or
not) as it pleases.

It is an act of supreme hubris (not to mention monumental and laughable
ignorance) for the United States even to contemplate attempting to
regulate content on the Internet. The Internet is the single most
powerful force for human understanding and communication on the planet
today. It brings together people of all ages and circumstances from all
over the world, with other people and with information and ideas that
they want, ranging from a cross-section of a dissected human cadaver to
the Martha's Vineyard - Woods Hole ferry schedule. Anyone with access to
the Internet can reach literally millions of other people, with few or no
logistical or economic barriers in his or her way.

At Christmastime 1995 I put up a web page, linked from my home page,
called "Secrets of really good chocolate chip cookies." The folks at
Yahoo put it in their directory. In the first seven months it recorded
almost 10,000 "hits," or visits. Within a few hours of its Yahoo listing
I began
to receive electronic mail from people all over the world who are
interested in chocolate chip cookies (and who isn't?). The power and reach of
this fledgling medium are staggering.

Information doesn't just want to be free; it WILL BE free. The Internet
ultimately cannot and will not countenance censorship of any kind. "The
Internet interprets censorship as damage,
and routes around it." Also, the Internet is big, and the World Wide Web
at last report was doubling in volume every 53 days. Thus, while some
Americans may find that their government is trying to make them into
felons, not a single child anywhere will be "protected," because
somewhere else in the world someone will publish the same content, and a
fifth grader in Iowa City will find it equally easily. Let parents have
the technical tools to protect their children as (and if) they choose...
if not for philosophical reasons, then for practical ones: nothing else
will work.

A thousand years from now, at the next millennium, when we and
this civilization are forgotten except for "Ancient Earth History"
courses taught all over the galaxy, the First Amendment will be our
monument. It will speak powerfully of the kind of civilization we tried
to have. Let it not be said about us that we failed.